


the moon is friend to the lonesome

by caesarions



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Alternate Universe - Medieval, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, First Kiss, First Meetings, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Hero Worship, M/M, Medieval Medicine, POV Alternating, Red-Purple Hawke, Religious Conflict
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-05
Updated: 2019-01-05
Packaged: 2019-10-04 16:19:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17307815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caesarions/pseuds/caesarions
Summary: On his regular evening stroll behind the Chantry, Father Sebastian ends up saving a life that could vastly improve his own.





	the moon is friend to the lonesome

**Author's Note:**

> since places in thedas are already mostly inspired by medieval europe and their religion by kind of catholicism, i just took that a little further and created a combination world/religion. werewolves kind of take the place of mages, especially in their negative social standing. this particular setting isn't exactly kirkwall since i wanted a more foresty vibe. but you really don't have to take the worldbuilding too seriously because it was just a fun idea.
> 
> also i'm not a furry

Since he had started a bit late today, a lantern accompanied Sebastian Vael on his evening stroll. That was already more company than most nights.

It was a mere fact of his new Chantry life. Most of the brothers and fathers meandered within the main cathedral’s walls. That is to say, if they exercised at all. But after a long day of menial chores, Sebastian found himself longing for air free of incense and ambience of hymns.

If the weather proved most foul, Sebastian would walk the paved roads of the town. He would exchange pleasantries with regular worshippers and keep a hawk’s eye on those who were not.

Yet, on those evening walks, his mind thought only of the forest behind the Chantry. This ran contrary to the fact that, even when fair weather enabled him, Sebastian only skirted the treeline out of an animalistic pounding in his heart.

Thus, when the sky turned overcast, the priest played with chance and exited through the back. After a childhood in dreary Starkhaven, Sebastian trusted his ability to tell which clouds threatened rain and which did not. Supporting his conclusion, the wind blew, but not enough to turn over the leaves.

In its place, something else was amiss. The wind was slow, yet oppressive. Sebastian moved as if swimming in oil, and the foliage proved no less black. Even the Chantry’s white walls dissipated into a midnight sky, when the time should have been eve. Well, the clouds did shield the moon as veils did a maiden.

Sebastian would hum to keep himself company. But today, everything from the gravel crunching under his feet to the winds howling above sounded louder than his silly attempts at self-comfort.

...Could winds howl if they be sluggish?

The priest stopped. Raising his lantern in a terrible understanding, he turned to the forest.

A groan arose from the depths of the woods, overturning the leaves—as well as rattling their trunks.

“I am coming!” Sebastian announced posthaste. Tightening his cloak about him with his free hand, he leapt into the underbrush.

Perhaps not his wisest decision, but no one would claim Sebastian to be full of them, especially no one back home. The brush pulled at his cloak like drunkards—not that Sebastian would know. The roots tripped him. The lantern revealed little of importance, only the mud clouding his white boots. Though rain last fell weeks ago, the forest held onto history.

When Sebastian had been running blind for far too long, he used the last of his breath to bellow, “Speak, pl—!”

A blood-curdling bay interrupted Sebastian’s noble manners. The priest’s own hackles raised when it ended in a whimper.

In the heart of the forest, the cry for help echoed endlessly off of the towering trees. It was much like listening to his family’s voices bounce off of the castle walls when figuring how best to avoid them. Sebastian swallowed, pushing his heart down and out of his throat, and continued on.

Eventually, the clergyman took a tumble down a small hill. Instead of a boulder to greet his head, Sebastian graciously landed in a clearing of sorts. A circle of trees surrounded the soft grass.

Deceptively so, as even softer whining caused Sebastian to glance up.

“Oh, you poor thing!” All the priest could see was the outline of a hulking beast, but even that stilled his heart. Instead of cleaning off his white robes, Sebastian jumped to return the candle to the metal lantern. He had lost it in the fall, causing the flame to dwindle.

However, that was still more than enough.

The lantern reflected the unnatural silver of the leghold trap, the only object of death in the forest. Sure enough, the wolf’s front leg was caught—hopefully not crushed—between its vile teeth. Another swing of the light revealed black fur, which made it difficult to tell where the wolf ended and the night began. However, a patch of russet fur on its muzzle was crystal clear.

Even moreso when the wolf lunged for him.

Despite the beast being about half a human’s height and perhaps double the weight, Sebastian only closed his eyes and stumbled back. He placed his trust in the Maker. “Be at peace, I beg of you!”

Well, all was understandable, since humans had planted the trap. Both the Chantry and licensed hunters shared the rights to the forest, and Sebastian did not know how to tell their traps apart. Perhaps it mattered little and less.

“I heard your plea.” In case the flame would be too much for the animal, Sebastian sluggishly set the lantern down. “I came to help, I swear it.”

Though growling, now, the wolf was the one backing away. That is, until the trap pulled on its leg, causing the beast’s others to buckle. Another cry arose from its reed-thin throat.

“I know, I know,” Sebastian cooed. He kneeled first, inspecting the trap by the pitiful light he had left. A human could open the jaws of death easily—an animal, not so much. One only needed to push down on the springs, but that required a fingered grip.

That was easier said than done when the silver was plastered in dew, pine needles, and… Well, in the darkness, Sebastian could pretend it was something else.

But it had not yet dried.

Sebastian added to the sanguine decoration when, pushing down, his hand slipped. Part of his palm caught on the metal teeth, ripping a red velvet gash. “Maker’s breath! Oh, forgive my speech.”

The wolf whined and tilted its head.

“Oh, I will be fine. Thank you.” Sebastian smiled thinly. Over his thundering pulse and frayed hair, he could barely feel the wound.

The clergyman wiped his palms on his pants and tried again. This time, he pushed down through his sleeves for a bit more traction.

After an almost embarrassing amount of huffing, Sebastian pried open the jaw enough for the wolf to step out. Shaking with death itself, the trap snapped shut on empty air, as it should be.

As he stood, Sebastian sighed, “Go now! You are free.”

The wolf bowed, brown eyes shining strangely, but even the simple action caused it to growl—not at Sebastian, but at its pain. It tried limping away into the treeline, but the beast fell into the grass.

“Ah… Always another step to freedom, is there not?” Sebastian reached his injured hand out, frowning deeply. He grabbed the lantern’s handle in a smooth motion and stood straight. “I have spent time volunteering with the sick and injured. If I return with supplies from the apothecary, will you still be here?”

Baying on the ground, the wolf used its good legs to push itself up. Eventually, it sat up—or at least hunched.

“...Right. I am speaking to a wolf.” Wiping sweat from his brow, Sebastian chuckled kindly at it all. “I must look a right fool. I might get laughed out of the apothecary in these robes, if they will even open for me. Still, I will go anyway.”

Perhaps it was just another swing of the lantern, but Sebastian swore on the Bride of the Maker that the wolf nodded.

Either way, when the clergyman returned at true midnight with a bandaged hand and an armful of even more, the beast lied in waiting. When he organized the cloths and medicines on a nearby stump, it watched. When Sebastian evolved from humming to singing Starkhaven folk songs to pass the time, the wolf relaxed—perhaps moreso than even the priest.

 

Many human scents lingered in the forest, soaking into the very leaves and becoming entangled like the vines. Enough of them could overpower what the wolves needed to navigate. Yet, their very own settlements could lull a wolf into a false sense of security because their scents did not settle as much into the harsh brick and white cobblestone. A strange contradiction.

The cacophony was also a bit much for his ears, but Garrett Hawke braved it for the first time in weeks. The size of the town perhaps made this a fool’s errand, but acting a fool had not killed him yet—even with the curse.

Yet, Garrett had to find him.

The werewolf pulled his hood tighter as he rounded a corner. He lacked an ears or a tail or whatever humans thought he would look like, but it was still best that none of the townspeople became accustomed to his face. Well, some past lovers claimed he was hairier than the average man, but that was not up to Garrett to decide.

Immediately upon entering the slums, Garrett sensed he was searching in the wrong place. The man who saved him would not be caught dead in a bar or a brothel. He was taking an evening walk, not drowning in drink. He had apologized for saying the Maker’s name in vain—not that he had said anything even as vaguely vulgar as _Maker’s balls._

Garrett skipped the docks entirely because he had smelled no fish or salt of the sea on him. Sighing, the half-man instead turned his attention to the marketplace. Even if he was no merchant, the shops would hold the most humans.

However, Garrett quickly discovered that he had miscalculated just how many.

Passing bodies jostled his cloak enough to displace his hood as soon as Garrett had stepped onto the cobblestone plaza. In his haste to hold it up, he elbowed a shorter woman in her shoulder.

“Watch where you’re going!” she barked.

And they said his kind was uncivilized.

Garrett simply grinned with teeth. “I’m sorry. I was momentarily blinded by your beauty.”

“Well, now, messere,” she chuckled with pleasure, turning as red as the apples for sale behind her. “That’s noble speak.”

Before she could continue, Garrett disappeared into the darkness behind the stalls. Perhaps in another life, the poor woman would have been correct, but any riches dissipated even before his own time. No one would support Leandra’s marriage into a cursed bloodline.

At least, no one who mattered. When it was love, it was love.

He had their conversation memorized. Next, Garrett went looking for the apothecary, but it almost came looking for him. Piercing herbs forced themselves upon his senses, enough for Garrett to sneeze. He scratched his nose, right under the rosy birthmark across his bridge, and entered the building.

The main room held little importance, only shelves of sham medicines and their naïve buyers. Two doors surrounded the check-out counter. Garrett tiptoed as close to the right wall as possible, catching a glimpse of the feet of some beds. If he could just—

“Can I help you, serah?”

The cashier was a sickly old man. Another contradiction. He did not look fit to fall down a hill and jump back up again.

Garrett huffed. “I doubt you would.”

The werewolf left with his shoulders hung low under his cloak. Since he had only gotten shaky and darkened looks at the man’s face, his medical prowess had been Garrett’s biggest clue. Whoever the man was, he had smelled as comforting as fresh linens and forest rain.

Because the back rooms smelled of old linens at the very least, Garrett decided to return later.

To waste time, Garrett skirted around the rest of the settlement. Meandering on main street, he considered circling back to the market. Perhaps he could pick up a gift for Bethany.

“I prayed for your health, my good lady, and here you are! The Maker works wonders.”

Garrett halted—along with his heartbeat.

Then, as he lowered his hood, the traitorous organ howled and threatened to burst out of chest. There was one man he did not mind remembering his face.

However hard Garrett it found to remember the other’s, he wanted to. He wanted to memorize something other than what was most likely one measly, one-sided conversation in the man’s eyes.

They were separated by a line of Andrastians that the man shepherded into the building. A new facial feature enraptured Garrett between each bobbing head, beginning with his caterpillar brows and ending with the curls at the nape of his neck.

However, Garrett remembered his voice. The man had to sing for Garrett to be completely sure. By the Maker above, there was one way to accomplish that.

As Garrett shuffled into line himself, he glanced up at the Chantry, aggressively stark white and imposing. Even now, Garrett could smell the forest behind it. As the line moved forward, the sun mocked his labor openly by flashing on the other’s even whiter robes.

He was an even bigger fool than Carver thought him to be.

Though Garrett kept his eyes on the ground and stepped quickly, the greeter still grabbed the other’s arm. He gently pulled it out of the cloak. “Welcome! I do not recall seeing you before. Are you new in this town?”

Since his hood was already off, Garrett let it happen. He glanced at his bandaged forearm, which the clergyman had been careful to avoid. Bethany treated Garrett after they both transformed back but commented on the integrity of the original.

“No,” Garrett shot back. When he finally glanced up into the other’s ice blue eyes, he almost lost all resolve.

“Be at peace. I simply try my best to keep all of our members in my heart.” The priest chuckled and held up his palms.

One of them was bandaged.

Garrett swallowed a desert.

“...I asked, will you be staying for the entire service?”

The poor man had to repeat himself. Face burning to match his birthmark, Garrett needed to retreat into the Chantry, and fast.

...That was certainly something he had never expected to think.

In line, Garrett had been practicing quips about how the priest shouldn’t underestimate his own healing touch, and where else that touch could be used. Instead, he simply said, “Yes.”

He scurried away as uselessly as a mouse does under a hawk’s deadly gaze. Some other degenerates had the same idea as him and spread themselves out over the red velvet pews in the very back. Though he would love to gaze at the one priest’s face for much longer, he was not as happy to see the other brothers and fathers. Garrett plastered himself against the wall and waited.

If all went to plan—a plan he had yet to come up with—he would see the other’s face much closer.

Before Garrett could elaborate on the finer pleasures of life, he noticed a surprising amount of movement for the flock of sheep. Some kneeled before taking their places in the pews. When the doors cleared, everyone stood. Garrett blinked in surprise and joined them.

The congregation began singing already. Perhaps the Maker was on Garrett’s side in this folly. As the ministers entered and the choir shuffled into place, Garrett strained his ears. Too many worshippers were singing—and sharply off-key, at that—to focus on one voice. However, the man’s face was one of many amongst the choir.

Garrett closed his eyes and bided his time. Surely just the choir would sing alone at some point. After all, that was their job.

Since he neglected to see the incense bearer coming in the procession, Garrett sneezed loud enough to echo off of the Chantry walls. A few families raised their brows at him.

The closest escape route was jumping through one of the stained glass windows.

After the clergymen stood in their respective places, it appeared time for the main event. Some old men swept their arms in a grand gesture and announced the Grand Cleric Elthina. An even older woman appeared at the altar, her hair as fried white as the decor. It seemed she had been born for the job.

“The Maker be with you,” she saluted in an ancient, thorny voice. As everyone mumbled the return greeting, Garrett just rolled his eyes.

He stopped listening as she went over some introductory announcements, droning on and on about the theme of last week’s sermon that Garrett had not heard and upcoming Chantry events that Garrett would not go to. When she described the charity drives, he huffed.

Garrett began to doze off, wobbling on his feet. At some point in the morning, Elthina’s voice got bolder and ended with, “...which The Reverend Father Sebastian Vael will lead us in.”

Sebastian? Sebastian. Garrett knew at once; if he did have wolf ears as some thought him to, they would be standing at attention. Sure enough, the greeter stepped forward and out of the choir. A noble name for a noble man, Garrett thought as the other approached the altar.

Lead them in what, exactly? Garrett scrambled to follow everyone else’s lead. The humans grabbed booklets from the back of the pew in front of them. Garrett used his height advantage to look at someone else’s page numbers. As soon as Garrett turned to it, he blinked owlishly at the music notes.

This time, however, the congregation stood silent as they looked up to Sebastian. Garrett looked up with the widest eyes of them all.

As he almost had his first coherent thought of the day, remembering that the Vaels were supposed to be of Starkhaven, he was interrupted by the object of his affections.

Sebastian began to sing.

Perhaps Garrett had even been underestimating Sebastian’s voice when he replayed the memory. Clear and sweet, his tune kissed even those sinners in the back rows. Colored sunshine dripped in from all of the windows, much more vibrant than when the woman spoke.

Garrett could normally measure time by heartbeats, but now, his heart lied. Sebastian sang alone for but a measure, but Garrett’s heart thundered over a hundred times in that short instance.

Then, the congregation joined in, and the moment was over. Garrett was released from his own personal hell. His knuckles blanched as he gripped the pew and ceased listening for his own good and the good of others.

The half-man would have given his life to be able to sit. Instead, when the hymn subsided, Sebastian moved straight into asking the Andrastians to join their minds in an opening prayer. When the Chantry began to still further, Garrett glanced around to ensure they had not all left suddenly. Everyone remained, just with their heads bowed.

In the silence, he could better listen to his manic heartbeat. It had never gotten this bad, even after a hunt. Garrett crossed his arms about himself, as if that would do anything.

If Elthina had asked them to pray, Garrett would have left on the spot. Instead, the werewolf lowered his head and prepared to sit in for the rest of the morning.

After all, he had promised the priest that he would.

 

A shadow, all-encompassing in its height and width, passed in front of the metal screen, causing Sebastian to sit at attention.

“Bless me, Maker, for I have sinned. It has been a day since my last confession, and I accuse myself of the following sins.”

“Welcome,” Sebastian greeted blandly once he internalized the growling male voice. All of the clergy suppressed their accents during Confession as to preserve anonymity. But free from the other’s gaze himself, he raised an eyebrow. A day? Either this was the purest or falsest man in the world. “Please ensure that you are comfortable sharing these number of mortal or venial sins with me.”

From the other side of the screen came a sound akin to a sigh of relief.

“They are ongoing. And their type depends.” Sebastian rolled his eyes, but he let the other continue. He was already more entertaining than the other worshippers. “I met a man in the woods. And I can’t stop thinking sinfully of him.”

Perhaps a bit too entertaining. Sebastian’s cheeks flushed sanguine as he exhaled shakily. “Oh, my.”

“I don’t think socializing is a sin—not yet, at least.” Whoever commanded the other side of the screen laughed at his own jest. “But he sang to me when we met, which caused these problems afterwards.”

“All music should be in praise of the Maker,” Sebastian mumbled automatically. He folded his hands in his lap until his knuckles blanched.

The man hummed, the sound rumbling the wooden box. “Even folk songs from a homeland such as Starkhaven?”

“Those are alright.” Or so Sebastian had told himself. “Culture is simply a celebration of the differences the Maker gifted us.”

“Then, why are you hiding your own now?”

The silence stretched so thin that Sebastian’s thoughts ran wild, enough to sound like they scratched against the walls. Still, the drumming of his heartbeat reigned louder.

Finally, he hissed, “If you watched me release the wolf that night, I will not apologize for doing what is right.”

“I’d hope not, or I’ve been searching the confessionals daily for nothing,” the man huffed and puffed. “No one else in this town would be as willing to save my life.”

The fog had lifted, but the crystal clear answer clouded Sebastian’s mind further. “You… You must be a—”

“We can’t speak freely here,” he warned with an authoritative hush. “Will you meet me in the same spot in the woods tonight?”

“...Yes.” Pulling at his collar, the priest thought the wooden box had become a sauna.

The smirk was self-evident in the other man’s tone. “I know you will.”

“...I absolve you of your sins in the name of the Maker and of… oh, my.” Sebastian’s shoulders slumped. He whispered even as the confessional creaked with heavy steps away. “Say… say a prayer, please.”

 

As Garrett waited in the forest clearing, he eventually noticed a lantern floating closer. Garrett knew it was Sebastian from the way the hand holding it shook, even on a swampy, summer night.

He watched as Sebastian stepped purposefully down the hill and into the clearing, free of traps.

Well, Garrett was sure the priest still saw one.

“Oh, you came,” Sebastian murmured, tiptoeing across the clearing. Garrett was content to let the other man approach him. “I was unsure if you would keep your word.”

“Let’s not stoop to baseless stereotypes,” Garrett chuckled without malice.

Since Garrett was much taller, he noticed Sebastian raising the lantern above his chest, revealing gray robes. Whatever Sebastian noticed caused his eyes to blow wide over flushed cheeks, and not from the long walk. “...Oh.”

“Like what you see?”

The question went unanswered in word, but not in deed. Sebastian stepped back and cleared his throat. “You attended the service that day.”

“So, you do know of all of your members.” Garrett held out his hand—mostly to display the trap’s scar on his forearm, but if  Sebastian grabbed his hand, he would not contest. “I had to find my savior.”

“I was going to ask again why I had never seen you around the Chantry before that, but your sacrilege speaks for itself,” Sebastian huffed. He glanced at Garrett’s offer and instead placed his own hand on his chest.

Garrett initially pouted like a pup at the rebuke, but when his brain caught up to Sebastian’s banter, he blinked in pleasant surprise. “Well, choir boy, I wouldn’t exactly be a welcome face.”

“The Maker loves all of His children equally.” Perhaps the lantern played tricks on Garrett, but Sebastian seemed to smirk. “Kindly, my name is Sebastian.”

“Not the free ones, Sebastian. I knew your name already, but you don’t know mine.” Garrett began to circle around the other. “It’s Garrett. I live in a cabin on the other end of the woods with my mother, brother, and similarly cursed sister.”

Sebastian raised an eyebrow. Perhaps he expected a bit more mystery. Still, cloth rustled as Garrett felt Sebastian’s eyes following his every move. “Then why now are y—?”

A fortnight had passed since that night. Garrett pointed up to a sickly sliver of moon.

“Right,” Sebastian hummed. “...You know, I am not actually ignorant of the danger.”

“Didn’t think you were,” Garrett shrugged.

“You know it better than I, and yet you came back repeatedly,” the priest pointed out, almost accusatory. Since the candle warmed his cheeks considerably—yes, the candle—Sebastian lowered the lantern. “Is it a game for you, Garrett?”

“Why’d you craft such a complicated motive for such a simple werewolf?” Unbidden, an easy laugh bubbled up from his throat. “I already said it was to see you again. Do you hate the real reason that much?”

Sebastian closed his eyes and swallowed the last of the dignity, or whatever it was the Chantry described. “...No.”

A sharp inhale opened a space under Sebastian’s hand. Garrett’s keen eyes noticed immediately, and he slipped his hand over the clergyman’s gray robes and under his palm. The Maker would have it be his scarred one, which bound them together in the first place.

He did not receive a rebuke. This time, Sebastian gripped the other’s hand with a gentle force.

“...No, I do not,” Sebastian admitted as his ice blue eyes began to melt. “But... I also do not know what to say.”

Garrett coaxed Sebastian’s hand off of his chest and entangled their fingers. With his free hand, the werewolf lowered the lantern further. For just a second, he took pleasure in the descending flames amplifying Sebastian’s look of shock and excitement, two sides of the same coin. Eventually, he took the handle himself and dumped it unceremoniously onto the ground.

“Then, don’t say anything at all.”

In the oily dark, he tilted Sebastian’s head up by the chin. With the forest bearing witness, the rest was history.

The wind picked up, whipping the  leaves a surprising amount for its silent pass. The circle of trees now shielded the priest and werewolf from the rest of the world, but did not encroach on the couple’s moment themselves. The creatures big and small, night insects included, silenced their calls. Or perhaps Garrett simply lost them somewhere in the pounding of his heart.

Either way, Sebastian would fall to his knees for an entirely different reason.

**Author's Note:**

> sure their relationship moved pretty fast at the end but gods be damned if i wasn't going to use that line. we all know what’s more important when it comes to vows or funny writing.
> 
> thanks for reading! this is my first venture into the dragon age fandom, so comments & kudos are always appreciated!


End file.
